Palika Bazaar by Tarini Bakshi

While shopping in Connaught Place in the scorching heat of the sun, Palika bazaar is an alluring escape, serving the purpose of shopping as well as averting the sweat that drips down your back. A subterranean market located under the grassy inner circle of Connaught Place and the only air conditioned-underground market in Delhi, Palika bazaar is a labyrinth of shops. It is reputed for the wide range of black-market or illegal products sold since 1970s.

 In Palika you will find little of what you want and a whole lot of what you need. Notorious as the centre of pirated entertainment, this market hosts about 400 shops selling a diverse range of items –pornography, fake designer clothes, pirated CDs, movies, stolen artefacts etc. Palika bazaar witnesses tourists of all age groups, however the youth is particularly enticed as it is a sea of valuable junk like Rock ‘n Roll t-shirts, funky lighters, hip flasks, discounted electronic equipment and a whole lot of other stuff, which probably has never seen the light of the day. It is an amazing experience to wander through the filthy narrow lanes of Palika inundated with hundreds of people of different nationalities. 

Shady much?

The essence of Palika bazaar’s electric environment and shock-value atmosphere is encapsulated in one very vivid memory that left an indelible imprint on my mind- once when I was meandering in the maze like corridors of Palika, I unwittingly descended into an area which had shops with hundreds of CDs lined on their racks. Intrigued by the sight, I moved to have a closer look. As I approached a stack of CDs, a shopkeeper gestured towards the shelves, looked at me unblinkingly and then muttered ‘Double X chahiye ya Triple X?’